In the weeks leading up to the New York state primary, Zahran Mamdani took an unusual gamble.
The mayor of the largest city in the country did not yield to the various institutions of New York and the custom of allowing incumbents to be incumbents; Instead, he went full Ryland Grace to try to steer the world in the direction he wanted it in a moment he considered existential. Spurred on by Mamdani (and not a small dose of leftist politician Hassan Baker), two races that many thought would be battlegrounds between progressive Democrats and Democratic socialists have become, angering Latino Democratic leaders in those areas in the process.
And on Tuesday night, the gamble paid off in a way Ryan Gosling could never have dreamed of: Both Mamdani candidates won their primaries, joining a third left-wing candidate who also joined him to complete a hat-trick. (New York City’s Democratic primaries always determine the overall winner.) The backstory and reverberations will be felt across the country — and yes, it may bolster Nithya Raman in her bid to oust her Democratic establishment in Los Angeles.
Oh, and meanwhile, an anti-AI candidate lost narrowly in Manhattan, a social media Kennedy lost much worse in Manhattan, and a Trump-aligned poster mogul (!) upstate scored a stunning win. We break down the four most popular races in New York from Wild Tuesday and what they mean for entertainment and beyond.
Congressional District 7, also known as the “First Whopper.”
A very long time ago — or on Thanksgiving — Democratic Congressional Leader and Latina pioneer Nydia Velasquez announced her retirement after 32 years in Congress. As a representative of the Hasidic Puerto Rican neighborhood of Williamsburg (as well as Greenpoint and Ridgewood, Queens, among others), Velázquez is an icon in New York City politics, having become the first Puerto Rican woman elected to Congress. (She is also the first person in her family to graduate from high school.) Velasquez supported Mamdani during last year’s mayoral race, helping secure support for him among the city’s large Puerto Rican population.
So, when it came time to retire, the septuagenarian kingmaker, à la Logan Roy, wanted to anoint her protégé Antonio Reynoso — a Brooklyn borough president and progressive — to take her seat. But Mamdani, feeling his chagrin and desire for a DSP candidate, went to Chief Roy in Velasquez and supported instead a young politician named Claire Valdez, who had a similar path to his—a freshman state assemblywoman in her thirties who came from elsewhere (Texas), had a bifurcated identity (she’s also a citizen of the Ysleta del Sur Pueblo Nation) and found activism at an elite college (art school). Chicago Institute).
This sent Velázquez apoplectic – and became an instant test of Mamdani’s arrogant DSA vibe against Velázquez’s establishment regime. Pre-race polls were close between Valdez and Reynoso. Casey Blues was greenlit for two seasons.
On Tuesday, Mamdani was acquitted, and Velasquez was greatly humbled. Valdez won by 20 points, removing any doubts that the old favorite was Doniso or that Mamdani did not have the strength to take on the establishment again. One of the greatest political dramas in recent memory had a series-defining ending.
excellent? One notable celebrity who lives in the Williamsburg-Greenpoint area is Kieran Culkin. Yes, all this drama was Roman Roy’s acting.
The 13th congressional district, also known as the 2nd and even larger congressional district
Back rooms It had less volatility than this one.
The political district of Manhattan north of 96th Street — Harlem and others — extending into the Bronx, has long been a traditional place. You have accepted the ring and paid your allegiance. For more than 45 years, the district was represented by Charles Rangel, one of the most powerful members of Congress of the 20th century. The territory’s lines changed, but Rangel’s power did not. Even when he was brought down by an ethics scandal in 2010, he remained in office for three more terms. The seat was then transferred to his chosen disciple. Adriano Espaillat was seeking a sixth term, and until a few months ago it seemed like a lock. Mamdani himself said he would support it.
Then the mayor changed his mind. the reason? A 32-year-old woman named Darialisa Avila Chevalier. A child of Dominican immigrants, Chevalier has never run for official office before. She organized and helped lead the 2024 pro-Palestine camp protests at Columbia University, which she once attended as a student. She also reportedly attended a controversial pro-Palestine rally in Times Square on October 8, 2023.
Chevalier was challenging the first Dominican-American elected to Congress in a district that includes the heavily Dominican-American Washington Heights area. But that legacy has become fraught: Chevalier withdrew from an interview Tuesday with radio station La Mija during a heated debate about why she did not include the Dominican flag on her social CV (she called Dominican nationalism “violent”). It is unclear whether this attention helped or hurt her as people headed to the polls. She’s certainly gotten a boost from other viral media platforms, as she appeared with left-wing broadcaster Hassan Peker and Valdez at a Bushwick club two weeks ago. Baker has come from Los Angeles to the trunk. Another big rally was held last Thursday, as Mamdani and his three handpicked candidates (who also included his former rival and former city comptroller Brad Lander) took the stage at Brooklyn’s historic King’s Theater. Sara Bareilles also gave a performance in a moment that seemed to spur all three nominations.
It all paid off in a big way on Tuesday when Chevalier pulled off an AOC-level upset, defeating Espaillat by about three points, or 2,000 votes, with 90% of the total counted. With her almost certain victory in November, Chevalier would immediately become the largest progressive force in Congress, surpassing Ocasio-Cortez, who notched a similar victory over the establishment during the midterms of Trump’s first term eight years ago. (I think it’s DAC for her AOC.) If you like Hassan Baker and progressive rabble-rousing (or you’re a conservative who likes to eat out), it’s great news; If you’re a moderate Democrat, even less so. (The area may have special meaning for Mamdani, whose childhood home is located within it.)
Chevalier and Valdez will join Lander, also a Democrat aligned with Mamdani who beat the incumbent, Dan Goldman, in the largely prestigious 10th Congressional District in downtown Manhattan and Brooklyn. Although not an official member of the DSA, Lander will unite with Valdez in what has been called — affectionately or sarcastically, depending on who says it — the Communist Corridor, which runs from the northwestern part of Brooklyn through that part of the Borough to western Queens, where many young progressives live. They will have a third point on the triangle in northern Manhattan.
Congressional District 12, also known as Jack Schlossberg’s Circus (but actually Big Tech).
This district encompassing almost all of Manhattan from 14th Street to 96th Street — Broadway, Madison Square Garden, 30 Rock, Lincoln Center, and pretty much where every media company is located and where entertainment decisions are made — was already an anomaly in that it did not include any far-left Democrats. It has center-left Democrats and center-left Democrats a little further. The two bold names she carried were Jack Schlossberg and George Conway — both popular on social media, and both poll movers.
The real race was between Alex Burris and Micah Lasher — respectively, a 35-year-old veteran engineer and technologist who was a state Assemblyman, and a 44-year-old politician (who worked under Mike Bloomberg and former New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman) who was also in the State Assembly. Lasher had the blessing of Congressman A For retiree Jerry Nadler of the Upper West Side. Burris has the blessing of longtime Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney of the Upper East Side. This is it Ferris Bueller-The level of paternalistic policy.
But the real drama came with artificial intelligence. Boris sponsored New York’s robust AI regulation, the RAISE Act (which, among other things, requires AI companies to publish and enforce safety plans). And so anti-POWER money came pouring in from Leading the Future, a Big Tech political action committee funded by OpenAI chief Greg Brockman, Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale, and VC Marc Andreesen, to fund eye-catching anti-POWER ads that didn’t pass the sniff test. (They exploited his past at Palantir, as if the whistleblowers didn’t exist.) The message was clear: Big Tech doesn’t want financiers in Congress. As Boris said on Tuesday: “I didn’t get into this race to make a point about AI, but some of the most powerful people on the planet, a handful of oligarchs determined to prevent any regulation of this industry… have decided to make an example of this race.”
“Americans everywhere are seeing artificial intelligence making its way into every aspect of their lives and economies, and they are looking to see who will stand up for them,” he added, in a phrase sure to resonate with Hollywood guilds and across the industry. For those in the entertainment industry looking for a friend on Capitol Hill to curb Big Tech’s appetite, Boris was their go-to guy.
His coalition was remarkable, uniting moderates who admired his foreign policy and progressives who admired his anti-AI stance. (“You could make a sitcom,” said Tartley, gun control advocate and former rival Cameron Caskey.) Plenty of movie and TV names live on from 14th Street to 96th Street, and at least one — La la land Composer Bing Pasek – endorsed. Oddly enough, this is what the safety-focused anthropologist has done, confronting OpenAI’s attack ads.
But by Tuesday night, Lasher wound up beating Burris by four points, or 4,000 votes, with 90% of the votes counted. (Schlossberg fared much worse, receiving just 11,000 votes, 25,000 votes behind Boris.)
Boris sought to sound a hopeful message about AI regulation in his concession speech. He may be right; This is not the end. “Future victories will build on the progress this campaign makes; that’s how movements work,” he said.
Lasher is likely to be a bit more centrist on a number of issues. As for AI, he was keen to remind big tech companies that while it wasn’t boring, it wasn’t their pawn either.
“I have some news for the two big AI companies that have shown such unusual interest in this race,” Lasher said in his victory speech. “I won’t be taking hints from either of you.”
21st Congressional District, also known as Bizarro World
We need to end with so much pride. Remember Mike Lindell, the Pillow Man? Welcome to the reboot: Anthony Constantino, the poster man.
Lest you think New York City has all the weird storylines, let us introduce you to the dramatic upstate route (and the road there) for the 21st CD, which runs from the middle of the state all the way through Plattsburgh to the Canadian border (and all the way west to Vermont). Adirondacks region. This is where Elise Stefanik comes from, and these are the people vying to replace her in the Republican primary.
People, different creatures, who can tell. This race between Constantino, an upstart if there ever was one, and Robert Smolin, an Assemblyman supported by almost the entire Republican establishment, is Alexander Paine material. election Reboot. Constantinou, a former boxer, and Smolin, a former Marine colonel, brutalized each other in the lead-up to the confrontation. Konstantin describes Smolin as evil in the text. Smolin described Constantinou as a Democrat.
What was crazy was how the latter got into the race.
Constantinou was no one for politics. He ran a sticker company called “Sticker Mule” (slogan: “Custom printing that inspires compassion”). But in 2024, he posted a 100-foot red-lit “Vote for Trump” sign above his office, visible from the freeway. The city of Amsterdam, New York, disapproved of it and believed it could cause accidents for drivers; Constantinou responded that it was freedom of expression. “I spent my day, to my surprise, talking to friends, family and UFC stars asking them what to do,” he said.
Som how Trump noticed (I mean how could you miss), He supported Constantino, and as of Tuesday night, The Sticker Guy is the Republican nominee for Congress, having beaten Smolin by 20 points. (There were 216 letters written; I don’t even want to know.) Anyway, now he’ll step up to take on a little-known Democrat named Blake Gendebien (slogan: “Join us in sending a dairy farmer to Congress.”) This will make for a massive satire someday — or just a great real-time documentary. I wonder if Stefanik is reconsidering that resignation right now.
As for downstate Democrats, of course the question now will be whether this situation is more permanent in the Democratic Party or whether it will mimic the progressive uprising of the first Trump administration, when a number of left-wing congressional candidates rose to power but some, like Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush, were swept away when Trump was no longer in office. Is this DSA movement emerging in New York a Trump-supported movement that will disappear when he does? Or a fundamental change, driven and embodied by Mamdani, which we are only beginning to understand? This part of the script, at least, has not yet been written.
